Conventional shirt-type garments have their sleeves positioned so as to extend outwardly in opposite directions from the trunk portion at 180.degree. from each other. In other words, the central axis of the sleeves in conventional shirt-type garments can be thought of as lying in a single lateral plane through the body (i.e. the plane through the trunk which separates the anterior and posterior portions thereof). Thus, if the median plane of the body divides the body into left and right halves, then the lateral plane is perpendicular thereto. A one-piece pattern which illustrates this construction is the so-called kimono sleeve (as shown in FIG. 4A). The sleeves are in the lateral plane of the body and extend out horizontally at shoulder level. The kimono sleeve pattern is the basis from which conventional shirt-type garments comprised of multi-piece patterns are made. Two such variations are the so-called set-in sleeve and the so-called raglan sleeve. In each of these variations the central axis of the sleeves is angled below the horizontal of the shoulders, but they are still in the lateral plane of the body.
This setting of the sleeve direction within the lateral plane in the design of conventional sleeved-type garments implicitly assumes that the arms move equally in all directions around the body. If the natural arm movement range were equal in all directions then, indeed, the most logical placement of the sleeves in relation to the body would be in the lateral plane making the center of the movement range symmetric between front and back.
In conventional garments while the armholes may be cut out more from the front than from the back, the sleeves are conventionally set in to fit arms positioned at the sides, rather than to fit arms positioned in a substantially forward position.
In early pressurized space suits made of fabric which is inflexible when inflated, the sleeves appear to have been necessarily set at a relatively fixed forward position (in order to be at all functional). Applicant, long after making her invention, came across a recent reference to a discussion of the first functional Wiley Post 1939 pressurized suit on page 29 of the book "Suiting Up for Space" by Lloyd Mallan (New York: The John Day Co., 1971). The description in this book of the construction of this suit is very vague. In any event, in subsequent decades, no one has ever thought that such relatively rigid positioning could be adapted to be useful for more conventional garments made from flexible materials. Such early space suits were apparently not concerned with accomodating the range of natural motions, but rather with a set functional position under essentially inflexible restrictions.
The sleeved-type garments which are the subject of this invention are open to the ambient atmosphere, unlike the aforementioned completely functionally rigid and sealed pressurized space suits. A gas and/or water impermeable wet suit, even with relatively tight cuffs, could still be encompassed within the "atmospherically open" sleeved-type garments of the present invention, because the cuffs and neck openings are not significantly sealed from the outside atmospheric pressure.